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Linguistics & Grammar vocabulary · Clauses and Sentences

Subordinate clause

Meaning in linguistics & grammar, with examples

nounCore term

In linguistics & grammar, subordinate clause means: A clause that depends on a main clause and cannot stand alone as a sentence, such as 'when the bell rang' or 'that she was right'.

In Turkish: yan cümle, yan tümce, bağımlı cümlecik

How it is used

Also called a dependent clause. Subordinate clauses work as nouns, adjectives (relative clauses) or adverbs (time, reason, condition), and usually start with a subordinating conjunction or a relative word.

Example sentences

  1. 'Although it was late' is a subordinate clause, so it needs a main clause to complete the sentence.

  2. Academic writers often put the subordinate clause first: 'While these results are promising, more data is needed.'

Common collocations

  • dependent clause
  • subordinating conjunction
  • adverbial clause
  • noun clause
  • main clauseA clause that can stand alone as a complete sentence and carries the main idea, such as 'we cancelled the trip' in 'Because it rained, we cancelled the trip'.
  • clauseA group of words that contains a subject and a verb and forms a sentence or part of a sentence, such as 'because it was raining'.
  • conjunctionA word that joins words, phrases or clauses, such as and, but, or, because, although and when.
  • relative clauseA clause that gives more information about a noun, usually starting with who, which, that, whose, where or when, as in 'the book that I borrowed'.
  • conditional sentenceA sentence with an if-clause and a main clause, used to talk about a condition and its result, real or imagined: 'If it rains, we'll stay in.'

More terms: Clauses and Sentences

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